


And the spies came out of the water

by flickerbyniall



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Amnesia, M/M, Memory Loss
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-25
Updated: 2018-12-25
Packaged: 2019-09-27 05:12:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 20,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17155883
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flickerbyniall/pseuds/flickerbyniall
Summary: He looks at the cash and then at Harry a couple of times before swallowing, "I don't want any more trouble. I have enough on my own.""But you need the money," Harry says, establishing a fact. "And I need a ride."orHarry is on the run when he meets him.





	And the spies came out of the water

**Author's Note:**

> this is inspired in Bourne Identity (the movie) but it doesn't follow the entire plot.

He’s bouncing in whatever surface he’s lying on. His bones are aching and his migraine is palpitating from the back of his eyes. He hears a whimper and turns his head to the sides until he realizes it's coming from his own sore throat. Something it's not right, he can barely move and the first thing that his senses capture the moment he wakes up is the smell of wet wood. So he opens his eyes, only to see a stripe of light coming from the spaces between planks of wood over him.

It's freezing, he can feel the cold wind entering the room and hitting his wet skin, he bites his lips to try to warm them up and sees his breath over his head, drawn in smoke in front of his eyes. His fingertips are cold when he touches his chest and the rest of his torso, he's shirtless but he still has his pants on, or whatever the thing he has on is. It feels plastic but it's dry inside, like those surfing suits.

He sits up and frowns the moment he feels the blood rolling down his back. It's dark but there's a spotlight lighting up his body placed in the corner on the table he's been laying on. He looks at his arms and sees them covered them up with tattoos, just like some parts of his torso. He has two laurels on his hips and where he is also bleeding from a little incision on his left hip. His breathing starts to accelerate so he starts looking at his surroundings trying to find an exit. It is only three feet from where he's lying and if he can bear the pain in his back, he can get out of there in five minutes.

He starts moving when he hears steps coming down. He goes back to the table and lays down, trying not to make a sound and closes his eyes. The man enters the room whistling, he opens the water tap and lets the water run for a couple of seconds until he walks up to him. It's not until he feels a small blade on his skin next to his hip that he grabs the man's neck and squeezes, making him drop the scalpel on the floor and put his hands over his.

“What are you doing to me?!” He yells and feels the open wound start bleeding.

“I’m trying to help you!” The man answers with a rusting accent, maybe Swedish, he can’t place it for sure.

"Where am I?!" He loses up his grab a bit only to let the man talk.

“You’re in a fishing boat,” he caught the moment he lets go, "We found you in the water," he talks slow, trying to make him understand, "You were shot, see?"

The fisherman points out a little container next to the table. Two smashed bullets covering in blood are on display.

“This was on your hip, under your skin.” He turns to find the man projecting a red light to the wall.

_00 -7-17-12-0-14-26_

_Gemeinschaft Bank_

_Zurich_

“What is your name, son?” He asks, looking right at him.

“I don’t know,” He whispers as he slowly passes out.

*

The crew decided to call him _“Namnlös”_ , which literally means _“Nameless”_. He’s fine with that, he doesn’t matter having people calling him names or making fun of him, he just wants to remember his own name, have any idea how he ended up bleeding in the middle of the ocean near Marsella. There’s a whole in his mind that can’t fill up. He can do things like help knotting the fishing nets and lifting the barrels of fish no one wants to touch or even make dinner some days for the last two weeks, he can speak fluently and read Swedish, but he can’t remember where or how he learned it. His brain thinks in English so he decided that’s his native language. He can read maps and calculate distance only using a compass and feeling the fucking wind but he can’t explain the procedure, he just knows that everything single thing that pops up in his mind is accurate, but there’s nothing personal, only data and number and muscular memory.

He looks at the mirror a lot. He examines every part of his face trying to recognize anything, but the man standing in from od the glass is much of a stranger as anyone in that boat. His eyes are wide and green, his front tooth is bigger than the average and his lips are slightly askew to the side. He touches his cheeks, his neck, the corner of his eyes and everything feel fresh and new and it's terrifying. He's sure there are stories to tell like the minuscule scar in his right cheekbone and his upper lip or why his hair is so long. But the only thing he can do is tied it up in a bum and stop asking questions he can't answer. Anton, the man that saved him keeps telling that everything will come back, but nothing is happening and the whole in his mind has created a hole in his chest. He's missing something, he just doesn't know what.

Anton gives him enough money to go to Switzerland when they arrived at the nearest fishing port they can get him. There's more _good luck’s_ than _goodbye’s_ and he feels like he’s never been more lost than this moment.

*

His hands are shaking. Not only because he's pretty sure he just broke some ribs from the guy who just tried to steal from him, but it's mainly because he can't explain what just happened. One minute he was sleeping in a park bench, his head over the duffel bag that Anton gave him some clothes and food and the next he felt a hand under the bag, so he took it, pull it out, twist the wrist, break the arm and step one foot over the homeless man's chest until he heard bones breaking.

He's been running since he realized what he did, controlling his breath so people won't notice him, stepping outside the bank waiting for it to open. He only got in Zurich the night before and he hopes this place can give him some answers because even when, apparently, he knows how to breathe, he's running out of air.

Zurich is covered in snow and he lost his only coat when he ran away from the park after hurting that man. He only has a jumper on and his fingers are already freezing so he puts them under his armpits, trying to warm them up and waits only half an hour to step into the bank. He walks to the receptionist and asks to see a secret account. After writing down the sequence of numbers of the account – that he knows like the palm of his hand since is the only thing that relates to his past – he waits until two guys in a suits take him to the elevator and to the fifth floor.

His heart is starting to beat faster but his body doesn't seem to react to it. His walk is even and he's positive the expression on his face hasn't changed which is starting to scare him. He feels his pulse on his throat when the staff of the bank asks him to place his right palm over some screen, waiting to confirm his identity and he lets the air that he was holding on his lungs leave his body when the screen turns green.

He spends the next five minutes sitting a booth with a red velvet curtain instead of a door, waiting for someone to bring the silver box, open it with a key and then getting out the room, closing the curtain to leave him alone with his belongings. He takes a deep breath when he’s finally alone. His hands are trembling and any incident from that morning is long forgotten the moment he opens the box.

There’s a bunch of contact glasses, a watch, some keys, credit cards, USB drives, and a British passport. He sits down in the chair next to him and takes the passport and opens it.

**_Harry Styles._ **

His hair in the picture is shorter, but that’s him, that’s his face, the reflection in the mirror he’s been seeing since he woke up in that boat. He whispers his own name, trying it out, rolling it down is tongue and somehow it feels good but nothing else happens, his mind’s still blank, there’s no other explanation for what it’s happening to him coming from the name printed in front of his eyes.

He’s about to close the box when he sees the unevenness of one of the corners, so then he takes the edges of the plaque and takes it out. Harry stays still when he finds a bunch of money in different currency, a gun and at least eight different identities with different names but the same face, his face. His brain is running and his hands only take a couple of seconds to catch up.

He takes the red bag in the trash can and puts the cash, the passports, the keys and the address of what it seems to be his house in Paris. Harry closes the box and returns it to the man waiting for him outside the red curtain. He gets into the elevator and counts the seconds to the first floor. When the elevator door open, there’s a ready a set of eyes watching every step he takes, so he speeds up, avoiding the people in the front door, sliding behind a couple of guards, walking next to the walls when he hears the police talking to their radios.

Something is happening. They're looking for him and Harry doesn't understand why, so he holds onto his bag and walks down the street to the British Embassy. His feet go faster as he cut corners, knowing somehow where to go and how long is going to take him to get there. The policemen are getting closer, five for what Harry can count in the reflection of the window wall of the café he just passed by.

Harry can hear the men moving behind him, coordinating an ambush, trying to catch him but he shows his passport at the entry of the Embassy when they’re five feet apart from him. The British guards stop the policemen at the door and Harry loses himself into the crowd next to the queues to the information stands. He locates the surveillance cameras first, one each corner, four in total. He's looking for a way to the exist the moment the feels the British guards start moving but then he hears the strong accent arguing in one of the stands with a bold man looking boring and exasperated by the small blonde Irish man in front of him.

He catches pieces of the discussion. Something about a visa and the lack of money, a job and a place to stay. The argument doesn't last long because the man is taking his papers and leaving the embassy a minute after. Harry follows him with his eyes until he leaves the building, just then he feels a hand on his shoulder. He only reacts, taking the hand over his arm and twisting it, working the weight of the guard against him and dropping him in the floor, other two guard jump to him and Harry punches one of them in the stomach and the slaps his throat with his right hand, making him step back, trying to catch air, giving Harry enough time to kicking the other one in the tibia, making the guard drop to his knees and then hit his jaw with his tight.

Harry starts running to the emergency stairs, blocking the door behind him, his blood is running too fast through his veins and he can feel the adrenaline in every single bone, but he doesn't stop, he can hear the place is locked down and the soldiers coming to him, so Harry runs upstairs, finding a couple of them, taking the gun pointing to his face and hitting the guard in the forehead with it, dropping the body to his side, he pushes the other two guards downstairs, taking the radio of the unconscious one at his feet.

He keeps going upstairs until he reaches the seventh floor, open the emergency door. The people on the hallways stars going into the offices and look themselves in. Harry takes the map of the building that’s hanging on the wall and tries to place the only way out without being detected or having to hurt more people. His body keeps moving and he feels like he’s just a passenger right now, his brain is working non-stop and his hands are breaking a padlock with a fire extinguisher and he’s entering a dark room with a sealed door in front of him. He can’t take a minute to think what is going on or what exactly he’s doing, he just knows.

Harry can't explain it, he doesn't know the reason the British guards are after him when they're supposed to protect him, he doesn't know how he can beat them up or how does he can hear them two floors beneath him. When the door finally opens, he's standing eight floors above the streets, in an incomplete emergency stair. He's trying to look for another way to get out of the building but the guards are getting closer so he throws the red bag containing everything he owns in the world to the floor and rolls down the stairs, holding onto the bare wall, placing his feet in the thin frame of one of the exterior windows.

He starts moving when he hears the guards closing the door above him. Harry escalates down the wall knowing exactly where to place his hands and feet until he can jump to the ground without hurting himself. The snow splashing out his jeans to his knees but Harry ignores it, even when he feels it melting and getting his legs cold. He turns into a corner and stops when he sees the Irish guy from the Embassy looking at his phone, leaning in an orange Renault 4.

Harry smiles and his breath get caught in the back of his throat when he realizes is the first time he has smiled since he woke up. He clears his throat, gaining the attention of the boy a few steps in front of him. He's looking at Harry and for a second he forgets he has trained soldiers and the Zurich police force chasing him.

There’s something about those inviting blue eyes.

"You're the guy from the embassy, right?" Harry says with a smile, approaching him.

The blonde squints as Harry gets closer to the other side of the car. He licks his lips and Harry can’t help but follow the movement of his tongue. He looks down to his feet, taking the snow out of his shoes with the bumper of the car.

“Yeah?” He answers and there’s that accent again, something is bothering Harry in the back of his mind but he can’t quite say what it is. He doesn’t have time for this, a local patrol passes behind them and Harry steps to the wall next to the car.

“I need you to take me to Paris.” He looks up to find the blonde guy looking at where the patrol was just a second ago.

“Is that for you?” He asks, pointing at the empty space behind them.

“I’ll give you ten thousand pounds if you take me to Paris,” Harry says, the Irish guy let his mouth open for a couple of seconds before Harry take a wad of bills from his red bag and throws it to him. “I’ll give you other ten when we get there.”

He looks at the cash and then at Harry a couple of times before swallowing, "I don't want any more trouble. I have enough on my own."

"But you need the money," Harry says, establishing a fact. "And I need a ride."

*

“…So Bressie tried to talk me out of it, but I was already naked and running full speed to the frozen river," His accent resonates in the car as he keeps his eyes on the read, the radio is playing some pop song in the background and Harry keeps looking through the window, checking the mirror, calculating how long it will take them to get to Paris, "and I almost broke my ass."

He laughs and Harry smile. His name is Niall and he’s Irish – obviously –, he’s a musician or at least he’s trying to be one, he likes football, beer and apparently golf. He left his home when he was eighteen and been traveling the world since then. He’s also very talkative and hasn’t shut up since they got into the car, but Harry enjoys it, makes everything more lightweight.

“I’m gonna turn the volume up,” Niall whispers and Harry turns to him.

“Don’t do that. I like talking to you.” He replies, only to find Niall rolling his eyes.

“I’m doing the talking; you’re just looking at trees.”

Harry hides his smile into his jumper. Niall is a breath of fresh air after everything that has happened in the last twelve hours or even the last two weeks. Harry is a good observer, he has noticed. He can see cars behind them in the corner of the mirror that usually would be hard to detect, he can hear steps coming towards him even if they pretty far apart, he can tell the weight and even height of the person by said steps. But when it comes to Niall, apparently, he is just discovering now how observer he can truly be.

Like, for instance, Harry can say he's not really a blonde, his roots are a dark brunette, even if they can barely be noticed as if he dyed his hair just a couple of days ago. He also blushes a lot, especially when Harry accidentally touches his hand or when it gets colder inside the car. Niall also plays with his hair when he's nervous or when he feels Harry's look on him, which has happened just a couple of times in the three hours they've been on the road. His voice would tremble in the middle of a story when he tries to remember details that Harry doesn't need but Niall seems to think they're incredibly important, that made Harry think for a second that he could be lying, but then Niall would laugh and something in Harry's brain would just stop, like it's rebooting itself and Harry would get all dizzy.

There's something about Niall, about the way he talks, the way he smells and he moves that makes Harry feel like he knows him from a different lifetime and that frustrates him because his mind seems to be divided in two places, one outside the car, trying to find anything out of the ordinary that could mean trouble for him, and the other next to an Irish boy with rosy cheeks and bitten lips.

“So what about you?” Niall asks when Harry lets his hair down only to wrap it in a bun again and he has been waiting for it, for the curiosity to win over the manners, for the rightful questions to a complete stranger he agreed to drive to another country. Harry knows he has to answer, it's the less he can do.

And Niall seems to be a curious man if the way he keeps stealing glances to Harry’s tattoos in his arms when he rolled up the sleeves of his jumper can say anything about it, or how he loses himself a little bit when he sees open roads in the middle of the forest they drove by.

Harry can think in ten excuses to explain his name, a reason to be in Zurich and why he would pay twenty thousand pounds for a ride to Paris, he even has answers if Niall occurs to ask about the police chasing him, but for some reason, he doesn’t want to lie to him, he wants to trust him, he _needs_ someone to trust the middle of this shithole he got himself into and Niall seems to be the perfect candidate for the job.

"There's nothing about me," Harry says, looking at his eyes the second Niall turns at his face at him, only to hear him snort and return his look at the road. "I'm serious. There's nothing about me because I can't remember a single thing about me or my life previous the last two weeks."

He notices how Niall’s grab on the wheel tights up and Harry wonders if he’s afraid of him now.

“Like… you’ve lost your memory?” Niall clears his throat. He is scared.

"Yes," Harry answers, looking at the window again.

"That sucks, man," Niall says and that may be the first time Harry laughs since he woke up.

*

“So… Harry Styles.”

Harry nods after Niall puts down his English passport over the table and takes another sip of his hot cocoa. It's been forty minutes since Harry started talking and he hasn't stopped since, even when he thought he didn't have much to tell but Niall keeps asking questions and Harry keeps finding answers for him like an instinct like he actually needs to please this guy in front of him.

But it’s not only that, Niall _listens_. He really listens to every word that comes out of Harry’s mouth and he seems to care, there’s spaces between words where he even looks concerned for Harry when he shouldn’t and it’s nice looking into somebody’s eyes and forget for a second how shitty your life seems to be, because if you woke up one day in the middle of the ocean without a single memory and suddenly the police and the military of a European country is after you, it doesn’t seem to be a good life.

 "It suits you," Niall says and Harry looks up.

He has some cocoa in his upper lip and that makes Harry smile, so he doesn't say anything. Niall eats another fry and leans over the table, closer to Harry, smiling softly, but Harry doesn't quite understand what he means so he leans his head to the side, asking with his eyes for an explanation.

“Your name? I don’t know, it suits you.”

Harry laughs then. “Which one?”

Niall rolls his eyes, “You know what I mean.”

He lets the air out of his lungs and looks at the blue eyes in front of him, for some reason he feels in peace, but not entirely, it’s like something from the back of his mind is always present.

“I have no idea who I am but I can tell you right now fifteen different ways of getting out of here without getting noticed, I located every enter and exist by the moment we sat down and I can say the only two people in here that could put on a fight is the man eating the pie at the end of the hallway and the waitress that slides the cake.” Harry finally says.

Niall’s smile starts to fade away, but not completely.

*

Harry wakes up by the sound of knuckles knocking at the window. He opens his eyes but closes them immediately when the light hits him right in the face. It takes him a couple of seconds to get used to the sun over his head when he finally opens the door and receives the coffee that Niall is handing to him.

"Did I fall asleep?" Harry asks, taking a sip of the drink and giving it a second look when he finally takes it.

Niall nods looking in front of them, drinking his coffee, black for what Harry can smell from sitting in the seat with his legs spread in the sidewalk next to the place that Niall parked the car. He can tell what's in his drink, he can taste de coffee, whipped cream and a bit of cinnamon, even some almond milk, but he doesn't know what the drink itself if, he only knows that he likes it, very much.

“What’s this?” Harry asks, looking at his cup.

Niall clears his throat, taking another sip and avoiding Harry’s eyes.

“It was the special of the day, apparently. I didn’t wanna risk it so I ordered it for you,” he laughs. “You like it?”

"Yes," Harry says with a smile, standing up and stretching his arms up to his head. "It may be my favorite now."

"Good," Niall answers with a smile and Harry looks around him.

"So we're in Paris." He lets his hair down and he feels a headache slowing down, Harry starts massaging his skull as his hair falls in his shoulders. He can feel Niall's eyes in the back of his head he seconds after he mumbles a _yes_.

It's strange, how you can be in a place for the first time but feels like you've been there countless times. Standing in the middle of the street next to a ridiculous small car filled up with belonging next to a blonde, Harry recognize every corner, every frontage and every driveway of the city, he knows how to get to places, he can even walk from here to his apartment if he'd want to, but there are no memories attached to it and that makes his chest heavy and Niall's presence on his side, needed.

Harry finishes his drink and waits for Niall to finish his coffee so they can get into the car and start driving. The sun just starts to raise up, slowly like it’s waking up with them, letting the caffeine run through their body and feel a little warm behind the window’s glass as the sunlight kisses their skin gently, almost like asking for permission. That is the moment when Harry turns to Niall, and for a fragment of a second, he turns to look at him too and smiles.

It doesn't feel like the first time, or the last time, it feels like just one of many. Driving down this road, seeing those buildings, hearing Niall singing with the radio under his breath, the cinnamon scent left from the coffee and the way his hair moves with the wind when he finally rolls down the window. He feels like he has done this a million times. And he has a couple of seconds to enjoy it, how tender the presence next to him makes him feel, how his fingertips touch the exterior of the door only to feel the air in between his fingers or how rest he feels after eight hours of uninterrupted sleep.

It was something that it shouldn't have happened. He can't lay low like that, he can't put his guard down even when he's too tired to function, his body feels used to that kind of activity and life rhythm so he doesn't really understand how could he have had fallen asleep. Harry feels the sin right over his eyes, finally waking up when he sees the façade of his building. He looks up and immediately finds his apartment window, he doesn't remember the place but his eyes land on the balcony on the fifth floor so fast, he can only assume it's his place. That's when his senses start to kick in again.

“It’s there.” He says to Niall, pointing to the grey building with the red door, Niall leans down over the steering wheel to get a better look of the building and starts to drive there and find a spot to park when Harry puts his hand over Niall’s on the wheel, making him turn his head to the green eyes, feeling how Harry himself moves the wheel to keep then driving past the building.

"Keep driving," he says, looking at the auto track in front of them, searching for an explanation. "Park in that coffee shop in the corner."

Niall returns his eyes to the road and nods, parking the car seconds after. Harry is still looking behind them, maybe trying to find someone looking for him, getting ready to whatever situation that may present itself. Harry clears his throat when the car finally stops and Niall takes out the keys. They stay there for a couple of seconds, looking at everywhere but them and for no reason, Harry feels like none of them wants to say goodbye just yet. So when he opens the door and gets out of the car and he hears Niall doing the same only to be standing up in front of him, with the car between the two of them, he looks up to find Niall already looking at him.

“You wanna go in?” Harry finds himself saying, pointing to the building behind them, going against every last bit of rational thoughts when Niall smiles so big, something inside Harry’s chest goes back to what it feels to be its rightful place. “I can pay you the rest of our deal there and maybe eat some breakfast.”

Harry doesn't really need an answer by the way that Niall is smiling and looking at the ground so he just takes the forgotten red bag in the back of the car and starts walking to the building with Niall following on his side. People start leaving their homes to get to work, shops start opening and bicycles pass them dangerously close in the sidewalk so Harry takes Niall's hand instinctively to stop him to cross the road. Niall looks up to him and apologizes and even if he doesn't want to, especially because he doesn't want to, Harry lets his hand go.

There's a lot he can't explain since he woke up. He doesn't know the stories behind his tattoos or the scars across his body, he doesn't know the reason why would he grew his hair so long or has a notion of his favorite thing. He doesn't have an idea when his birthday is or where did he grow up, but there's something about this city, something about Niall that feels like some sort of a constant. And maybe he shouldn't get so used to him. It's dangerous and he can't put a complete stranger in danger when he only has been nice to him, it doesn't matter how hard does Harry want to keep him with him.

Niall starts talking again to fill the gap, maybe he has growing uncomfortable for all the staring that Harry was doing when they crossed the street but he just can't seem to shut his brain down when it comes to those blue eyes and the single, even when he seems to be alert at all times like both sides in the sidewalk and everyone coming in the corners, the intersections and the cars coming from behind, the people running past them listening music a bit too loud and Niall's blushing cheeks as he talks about the place he grew up. Harry hears and sees everything and it all seems to be fine. He doesn't like it, it's too perfect, too unreal.

So he puts his hand on Niall's lower back once they get to the building, looking for his keys on the red bag with his free hand and he's about to open the door when an old lady crosses the hallway next to the stairs, looking at him and drawing a huge smile on her face. She's wearing a floral blouse with white pants and glasses on, for some reason, Harry waves at her and she comes to open the door.

“Edward, dear!” She says, laughing as he makes him lead on to hug her, “It’s been a while since you’ve been here!”

She’s English and maybe that’s the reason why she seems to be so fond of him but Harry can’t remember her name, he doesn’t know who she is so he does the only thing that pops in his mind. He lies.

"I've been on a short trip. Work, you know?" Harry makes her laugh again, delighted. "This is Niall." He finally says, stepping aside so the lady can fully see him and get distracted for a second. It works because they start talking, giving him enough time to look at the interior of the building, trying to remember anything.

The stair goes all the way up and there are two elevators at the end of the hallway in front of them. Some mailboxes in the wall next to them some step away and a big and fancy chandelier over their heads. Harry looks down at the keys in his hand and sees a little one, small enough for one of those boxes so he walks up there, leaving Niall behind talking to the lady who doesn't seem to have a problem with that, she actually looks charmed by the Irish man and his noisy laugh that's starting to grow on him.

He looks to the little key with the number 502 on it, only assuming it's his apartment number, so opens the box, finding a couple of bills and some pamphlets. He takes it out and starts to touch the surface until he gets to the top of the box and he feels some kind of paper attached to it. Harry takes it out what it seems to be a black envelop with the name _Harry Styles_ in the back with white ink and nothing else. He feels the corners and the texture of the paper, it’s thick but not heavy and it’s just as big as the palm of his hand but something about it feels wrong.

He returns to Niall and the woman next to him. They’re laughing about something and the only thing he can do is smile at them.

“Oh, Eddie! He’s a keeper!” She says, lovingly and Harry need a second to collect himself and smile before putting his hand around Niall’s waist.

"Mrs. McKinney here is telling me about all the pasta she gives you so you'll stop order in," Niall says next to him, resting on his chest.

“And I’m very grateful for it.” Harry smiles, looking at the elevators for a second. “But we need to take a shower, it’s been a long day.”

“Oh, of course, darling!” she claps, moving aside so they have the hallway free.

"Mrs. McKinney?" Harry asks, making her turn to him. "Is there any chances you saw the person who put this in my mailbox?"

She looks at the black envelop in his hand and frowns.

“No, sorry, honey.” She smiles, tenderly.

“That’s okay. Thank you so much.”

When Harry looks in front of him, Niall is already waiting for him in the elevator, holding the door open so Harry can get it. He presses the bottom with the number five on it once he gets inside and waves to Mr. McKinney who’s about to go out.

“See you at dinner boys!” She yells. “At seven! Don’t be late!”

And then, the door is closed. Harry frowns and turns immediately to Niall who’s looking at his reflection in front of him like that situation was an everyday thing.

“Dinner?” Harry asks and suddenly, Niall finds his shoes extremely interesting.

“She thought I was your boyfriend and she talks pretty fast,” he laughs, “faster than me, so when I’m trying to tell her we’re just friends, she invited us to dinner and then you came.”

Niall breathes out the sentence so he doesn't have to justify himself for getting them into this, at least is what Harry thinks and he's about to answer but the doors open and Niall leaves the elevator, leaving Niall hanging, carrying his red box and the words halfway out of his mouth. He laughs again when he sees him like that and once more when the doors were about to close on him.

Harry walks to his door with Niall following behind. He seems afraid, maybe for making plans without permission, maybe for insinuating they will be spending more tie together after Harry pays the rest of the money. Harry can’t blame him, dinner it’s not a good idea and he can’t keep dragging Niall everywhere he goes when he has people chasing him. If anything happens to him, Harry couldn’t forgive himself.

Harry opens the door and Niall is about to step in until Harry puts his hand on his chest and puts him behind his back, just in case. He walks inside the apartment, looking at every side in the hallway and stepping into every room before letting Niall in. Seems to be clear, and again, Harry doesn't like it but he decides to stop overthinking things, everything's been quiet since they left Zurich. Harry feels in his bones that is not necessarily a good sign.

He lets the mail in a tea table next to the door, keeping the black envelope in the front pocket of his pants and closing the door behind them. When Niall walks in, his eyes open wide. Harry laughs from the back of his throat and tries to play it off with a cough. He takes his hair in a bun again, to avoid bother for having it all on his face.

“Is this all yours?” Niall asks, gasping, and Harry understands the reaction.

The place is too big for just one person. The walls are white except for the main room and the office, the kitchen is large and it almost looks professional, the bathrooms are unnecessary luxury and the floor is entirely wood. Niall walks around the apartment with his mouth open and his eyes catching every single detail, his hands slipping through the walls as he goes by.

Harry leans on the door frame when they enter the living room. The balcony is in front of them in the center with the couches at the right and a big piano at the left. Niall looks at the ceiling, seeing the chandelier hanging over his head and Harry smiles. He doesn't know if this is all his, he doesn't understand how could he afford to leave in a place like this, but again, he doesn't know what does he do for a living.

"This is ridiculous," Niall says, finally, with his hands on his hips and walking to the balcony's doors and opening them, letting the morning breeze get into the apartment as he walks out to the balcony.

The view is nice, the sun through the white curtains, the wind making them dance and Niall's back as he leans to look down with the sun kissing his cheeks. Even when Paris feels like home, this apartment, this furniture and door seem so strange, so unfamiliar and lonely, but with this man in the middle of it, it doesn't feel so empty.

“Harry?” Niall is standing in front of him now, waving his hand in front of Harry’s face, trying to get his attention.

“Sorry,” he says, smiling and taking his hand in front of his face, only to hold it for a second between his own. “Were you saying?”

Niall laughs and Harry is starting to learn that he can laugh at any chance given. He likes that.

“Can I take a shower?” He asks, looking somewhere behind Harry’s head, avoiding his eyes. Harry smiles.

"Of course. I think I saw a bathroom down that hallway, I'll check the bedroom for some fresh clothes." He lets his hand go slowly, and Niall disappears into one of the doors behind them.

Harry sighs, looking at the living room for a few seconds more, trying to find anything that could trigger any kind of memory but the way everything is put, the way it’s decorated, the color of the walls and the furniture it’s too plaid to say anything about him, about the man that used to live in this apartment and ate too much pasta to keep him from eating fast food. There’s nothing. The art on the walls, the bottles of alcohol in a corner with different kind of glasses that seems barely touched, the vinyl player with no vinyl records near close to being found. It's like the break into a random house for shelter.

The bedroom is dark, the color of the walls is a light grey but the curtains are black, keeping the sunlight out. The bed is big like everything else in this apartment, there’s a painting of a light blue with little drops of golden yellow over the bedside. Harry stands in front of the bed, in front of the painting when his head starts buzzing like it’s trying to tell him something and the colors in it it’s oddly familiar but all he can see is a tide with maybe the reflection of the sun over the waves, and Harry is almost certain he has seen this somewhere else.

Harry bites his lips, stopping himself from wasting more time, he lets the red bag on the bed and goes to the walking closet and opens the doors. He looks around and it's filled up with shirts, suits, coats and Italian shoes for what his eyes can catch. Harry looks in the drawers and takes one pair of sweatpants, a t-shirt, a pair of black jeans, a sweater, two pairs of socks and a couple of boxers and leaves it on the bed before going to the office, hearing the water hitting the floor from the bathroom on his way.

The office is also dark, the walls are a navy blue and there's only one big window at the right of the big desk in the side of the room right in front of the big wall of books. Harry exanimates every title but there's biology, mathematics, physics and history books, besides novels and tourist guides and dictionaries. Harry wants to scream and take this giant shelf to the floor, he wants to kick that stupid desk and throw the pens to the walls, he wants to break the only lamp on the desk and make a hole in that ridicules chair.

But then he remembers the envelope resting in his pants. He sits in the stupid chair and opens the envelope as gently as he can. The interior is the same, black and plaid, nothing that could tell where it comes from and inside there's a small piece of white paper but when Harry takes it out, there's nothing written on it. He flips the envelope, trying to find anything else but it's empty. Harry puts the paper over the desk and touches the corners and the surface. He feels some parts of the paper colder than other so he turns on the lamp and puts the piece of paper right in front of the lightning ball.

A phrase in blue ink appears slowly. It’s the train station address and numbers.

_A-4381_

In the bottom left corner of the paper is a _G-5_. Harry closes his eyes and tries to give any of this a meaning, it has to be some kind of locker in the train station but he doesn't have a key or any idea where could he find a key.

“Harry!”

The sound of the shower is gone and Niall’s scream resounds in the apartment. Harry leaves the paper and runs to the bathroom only to find Niall with a towel wrapped around his waist, his hair wet and a gun on his hand.

"Why do you have a gun in your bathroom?!" He sounds frightened and Harry is partially thankful for having this situation to focus his brain on instead of the fact that Niall is wearing nothing but a towel.

He takes the gun from his hands and puts in behind his back on his belt.

"There are clean clothes in the bedroom right there." Harry points the open door and Niall stands in front of him for a few seconds until he finally walks in that direction.

Harry lets the air out and starts returning to the office when he feels the hand on a glove about to touch his shoulder and his low back going for the gun but Harry turns around right on time, twisting the man’s arm and kicking the back of his knee to make him fall but he’s big and strong and he barely trips. He holds onto Harry’s arm around his neck and lifts him up the floor to push him back to the wall, leave him out of breath for a second.

He uses his elbow to hit him in the throat and the man lets him go, falling on his knees. Harry takes his head between his tights and turns him around, anchor him in the floor, using his own weight on his favor.

“Harry?”

Harry looks up to find Niall completely dressed looking at both men on the floor and distracting Harry enough to give the guy the opportunity to punch him in the tight, freeing himself.

“Run, Niall!” Harry yells at him, dodging a foot on his face as he holds on the lower back of the man as he gets up. “Get out of here!”

But Niall is frozen outside the door, looking at them with open mouth and his arms on his sides. Harry tries to reach the gun on his back but it has fallen somewhere in the floor, when he finally lies eyes on it, the man is about to take it, so he slides between his legs and kicks the gun to Niall, getting enough time to punch the man to the living room, away from the Hallway.

He takes Harry by his shoulders and throws him in the piano, his back hitting the keys and that's when he hears the numb sound coming from the piano. He gets up before the fist could hit his face and hears the sound again. Harry punches them in the stomach, the chest and the neck hard enough to make him back off, only to have a chair thrown at him. Harry moves to the side and takes one of the gin bottles on his hand and breaks it on the man's head when he's close enough. He starts bleeding and his vision blurs so Harry hits him in the face when he blinks, making him walk back.

Harry kicks him in the chest but he takes his leg on his way down, punching him in the crotch. Harry eats the pain and tries to takes his arm again but he’s faster, pressing Harry down in the floor, sitting on his chest, making hard for Harry to breath and then, he puts his gloved hands on his neck. The air starts to run out and his vision blurs with his tears when he hears a shot over their heads.

"Let him go!" He can hear Niall screaming behind them and another shot near the man's arms.

Harry starts punching his arms but he's not moving, Niall shoots again and his time he hits his arm making his grip lose a bit. Harry puts his arm between the space of this man's face and his neck and he pushes him hard enough to make him hit the wall. Harry runs to Niall and takes his face on his hands trying to find any imperfection, there's none. His eyes are filled up with tears and his hands are trembling.

He doesn’t have time to ask if he’s okay when he hears the safety being removed behind them and the pushes Niall to the ground and the covers him with his body, taking the gun from his hands and shooting the man hiding behind the sofa. Harry drags them down the piano and stands up enough to keep shooting. The bullets get the piano, making the wood fly everywhere, making it difficult for Harry to see. He has one hand on Niall’s hand and the other on the gun, he takes a moment to look at the room and he ducks down to shoot at the man’s leg and buy enough time to stand up and walks to the couches.

“Niall!” Harry yells as he approaches the man the moment he stands up to start shooting again, kicking the gun from his hand to the other side of the room.

Niall looks up when Harry hits the man’s face with his knee making him tripped and fall on his back.

“G-5!” Harry screams again. The man takes the band off his hair, making it fall all over his face and the next thing he feels is a fist on his jaw and he tasted the blood on his mouth.

“What?” Niall yells behind him.

Harry takes the man's head and hits it on the floor to disorient him. "The piano! Play G-5! It's the-"

“I know how to play a note!” Niall screams back, “I’m a musician.”

Harry hears the mute sound and turns just in time to see a key jumping from the piano to Niall’s hands. But in that time, the man takes a pocket knife out of his ankle brace and stabs Harry right on the thigh.

“Son of a bitch!” He takes the knife out of his thigh and when he tries to return the favor, he throws him off him to the wall and starts walking to Niall.

"Take the key and go for the red bag on the bed," Harry runs to the gun near him and shoots at the chandelier, making it fall right at the man's feet, giving enough time for Niall to run to the main room. Harry chases the man the moment he walks out of the living room and pushes him to the kitchen. His brain is running faster than it ever has, looking at the knives in the shelves, the pan and pots above the stove and his hands go to the closest thing he can get. A plate.

The man starts running to the knives and Harry throws plates at him as he goes for the knives as well, meeting in the middle and he uses his legs to make loose balance and make him fall, taking one knife in his hand and put in on his throat.

“Who are you?!” Harry starts to breathe out, “who send you?!”

Niall walks through the door then, holding up a gun, pointing at the man on the floor, his hands shaking and the bad on his shoulder.

“Check his pockets, Niall.”

He swallows loud enough for Harry to hear and he hates himself for making him do this, but his hands are full and his man is not talking so Niall does as he said to. He searches the pockets and finds two papers. He unfolds the sheets and stands back, trembling, dropping the papers, letting Harry have a look. It’s photos of the two of them, in the embassy.

"He has my picture," Niall says, the gun has forgotten in the kitchen table. "Those are from inside the embassy," his voice trembles as well, "how does he have our pictures, Harry?!"

The man starts laughing, loudly and madly. "You are dead men walking.", he spits blood to Harry's face before pushing him over and runs to the living room when Harry catches up, it's only to see him jump out of the balcony.

*

Harry goes to the main room and looks in the matters, finding another gun and more bullets in the draws of the tea table next to his bed. He puts the gun on his lower back and runs to the bathroom to wash his face and his neck, taking the shirt off and putting a sweater on and taking a black coat from the cabinet. He takes the black jeans as he takes Niall's hand and drags them out of the apartment. He changes clothes in the elevator and turns to see Niall crying, his hands holding the red bag to his chest. He's biting his lips too hard and Harry feels sick.

He approaches him, slowly and Niall steps back until his back hits the wall. Harry frees his bottom hip with his thumb and sighs.

“You’re hurting yourself.” Harry drops the bleeding pants in the ventilation duct.

“Me?! You’re bleeding everywhere!” Niall screams, looking at his eyes for the first time in the last twenty minutes.

The doors open and the first thing they see is Mrs. McKinney with a hole in the head sitting in the restroom chairs.

"Oh my God," Niall whispers, covering his mouth with his hands.

“Don’t look at her.” Harry takes his arm and starts walking to the door, taking the red bag from his shoulder and slightly pushing Niall through the crowd formed around the dead body that fell from his balcony.

*

Harry is driving this time because Niall can’t seem to make his hands go still. He can’t blame him, it’s all on him. He got too confident and let his guard down because of Niall’s presence, he let himself go soft and now this boy has blood in between his fingers and images in his mind he should’ve never had. Harry doesn’t think he has blinked since they left the building and he hasn’t said a word but the only thing that worries him it’s that he thinks he’s a monster.

“I’m sorry,” Harry whispers without taking his eyes from the road.

Niall turns to him then, as he has finally awake for a very long dream. He looks at him with those dead eyes and Harry wonders if he's imagining the grey of his eyes instead of the potent blue with golden dots in the iris, just like the painting over his bed.

"How did he get our pictures?" It's the only thing that Niall says, returning his eyes at the road. "There were from yesterday, at the embassy." Niall starts whispering, maybe to himself. "How does anyone has access to do that?" He elevates the tone of his voice just to make clear he was talking to Harry.

“Apparently, the people that are after me are very dangerous.” He answers, slowly and Niall snorts. “And being with me has made you a target. I’m so sorry.”

“A target?! Me?!” Niall starts yelling the moment Harry stops the car, parking it in front of the train station, taking the keys with him.

“Give me the key.” He says, extending the palm of his hand to Niall, he looks at him like he just lost his mind but puts the key his hand anyway. “Right now, your chances are better with me. Stay in the car, don’t move.”

Harry gets out of the car before Niall could say anything. He walks to the station with the head down, his hair tied up and the collar of his coat up, he has his hand on the frontal pocket, feeling the gun in his fingers. He tries to shut himself down, walking faster and faster until he gets to the boxes. It shouldn’t be a problem only if the box _A-4381_ would actually exit. There's only twenty boxes per line and only seven letters of the alphabet. 

He contains himself from pushing the lockers and takes a deep breath as the queue tries to remember everything about the small piece of paper. Harry holds the key in between his fingers and his lips, trying to concentrate and give the note some sense, that's when he notices the inconsistency of the boxes, not all of them have the lock attached to the little white door of the box, some of them have bolts and padlocks that are usually the ancient ones, one to give of every letter. So Harry walks up to box number four and fits the key into the padlock and turns it until he hears a click but it doesn't open. The padlock has a sequence of three numbers in the top where it closes with the metal, so Harry moves the numbers until he forms the number 381 and a second click come and the padlock falls from his hand to the floor.

When Harry opens the door, the box is empty so he does the exact same thing he did with the mailbox earlier, he starts to touch the walls of the box till he feels something wrapped in tape. Harry pulls it out, it's a very small memory drive, he's about to put it in his pocket when he hears some disturbance behind him. It takes him one second to get the gun from his back and point to the target.

It’s a little girl holding a doll, and she screams, loudly. Harry drops the weapon and his breathing start going faster, he takes one step further and the kid starts running so he takes the gun from the floor before he could drag the attention to him and walks out of there, fast, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

Niall is sitting in the driver seat when Harry gets to the car, so he has to surround the car and looks for the car keys on his pocket but his hands are trembling and that's when it hits him. He almost killed a little girl, he pointed the gun to her face like second nature, safety off and his finger ready to shot. He can't open the door and he can feel Niall's eyes on his face through the window and even when he opens the door for him, Harry can't move.

“Harry?” Niall asks, lowering his voice as he leans over the co-pilot sit to get a better look at his face. “Got what you were looking for?”

“I almost killed a kid, Niall.” He says, louder than he should have.

People start to stare and Niall takes the sleeve of his coat and physically drags him into the car and closes the door when he sits, Niall, takes the keys from his hand and starts the engine. They leave the parking lot slowly to pass unnoticed but it's a turmoil starting to form at the entrance of the station, so Niall drives off, sharing look between Harry and the busy streets of Paris.

"We need to go to a police station," Harry says after a couple of minutes of silence.

“What?” Niall says, turning left in some corner. Harry can’t concentrate, all he can see is does terrified teary brown eyes looking at him, holding her doll to her chest like some kind of bullet-proof vest and then the scream. “Why?”

“I’m gonna turn myself in," Harry says with his eyes on the road but not really seeing anything.

“For what reason exactly?” Niall sounds oddly calm so Harry turns his head in his direction, feeling the tears drop down his face.

“Did you hear me?! I almost killed a little girl! I hear something behind me and I pulled out my gun! I was so ready to shot her, I didn’t even need to look at her face!” Harry is screaming and now Niall is driving faster but he’s pretty sure they’re not going to a police station when the view looks ugly familiar to the outskirts of the city.

"That doesn't sound like a felony to me," Niall says again, spinning the steering wheel with one hand, making them both slide to the right. "You say you'll protect me, that I'll only be safe with you." But he sounds weird. Niall is looking at his sides and pressing down the gas pedal and Harry holds onto his seat.

"They will protect you! There are people trying to kill me and it all might be for this stupid drive," Harry says, pulling out the USB from his pocket to show it to Niall, he glances at it and goes faster, letting the city behind them. "I can't put you in any more danger. You just have to explain everything as it happened but tell them I held you hostage."

“Policeman in Zurich were trying to-”

"Niall," Harry says, trying to get his hands in the wheel but Niall pulls out a gun from the glove compartment from copilot side in less than a second a points it right to Harry's face. Harry lifts up his hand, slowly sitting back.

“They’ll kill you.” He says without stutter. “I can’t let that happen.”

It’s the last thing that Harry hears before Niall hits him in the head with the back of the gun.

*

Harry wakes up in a gas station with his head resting in the window and no one by his side. He's bleeding from the forehead but the blood has run dried, he tries to touch it but his hands are tied up to the grab handle over his with some kind of plastic cable. Suddenly, his senses wake up all at once. There's a numb sound from the back of his head and he has to close his eyes because the lights of the grocery store in front of him start to hurt. Harry pulls his hand but the cable doesn't yield. He can't feel the gun on his back or sees his red bag anywhere close so Harry looks up to the window to see his surrenders. It's already dark and he has no idea where he is or how far from Paris they are or even if Niall still somewhere around.

The gas station is in the middle of nowhere and it has a small grocery store attached to it with window walls and only one man in the cash register. Harry locates Niall inside the grocery store, he can see the blonde head going from the drinks to other sections of the store. He looks around the car, trying to find anything that would help him release himself. There's still Niall's thing in the sits from the back but Harry can't reach anything that could be useful, it's all clothes and blankets and shoes. Harrys stops for a second when he spots a pair of converse under the blankets, he takes off the brown boots and uses his feet to grab the converse and his mouth to take the shoelaces off. He doesn't want to think how is he so flexible.

Harry puts the shoelace inside the plastic handcuff and starts rubbing it with his hand and his mouth. He feels his lips start burning when the plastic breaks off and his hands fall to his sides. He touches his wrists; they are red but barely sore. Harry turns his body to the back seats, trying to find a gun or anything he can use against Niall but again, there’s nothing helpful.

He opens the glove compartment and finds a lot of papers and under all of it, a pocket knife. Harry looks up to see if Niall stills in the store, he is but he’s already in the register paying for whatever he’s buying. Harry takes the pocket Niall and gets out of the car slowly and he crawls down to the wall in front of him that divides the gas hoses from the store.

Niall steps out of the grocery store with four plastic bags on his hands, he's reading what it seems to be a hair dye box, he walks to the back side of the dark and opens the trunk and putting the bags there, but when he walks to Harry's seat and doesn't see him there his hand reaches his back but Harry's in there before he could touch his gun, with the knife on his neck, restraining Niall's arms from movement. He takes his hand a put it higher in his back, making him whistle. Niall has his other hand wrap around Harry's hand keeping the knife away from his throat.

“Who are you with?” Harry whispers in his ear, taking a couple of steps forward, enclosing Niall between the car and his body.

"I'm with you," Niall says but his voice is choky by Harry's grab and for a second it seems like gives up, resting his head on Harry's shoulder and letting his body get loose.

Harry freezes for a second but it’s enough to Niall to push his arm with the knife away from him and hit him in the stomach with his elbow. Harry steps back, coughing and Niall kicks him in the chest, taking the pocket knife off his hand and throwing it behind him. Harry back up as Niall walks closer to him until his back hit the wall and he throws a punch to Niall's face. He uses his arms to deviates Harry's fists so he doesn't see his knee coming for his side.

Niall ducks down and takes Harry's leg with him making him trip until his ass hits the floor and his back is leaned in the wall, Niall is in the top of him then, sitting in his lap with his legs pressing Harry's tights together and holding his arms next to his face. His breathing is fast and his lips look incredibly red and once again, his eyes reminds him of that painting above the bed.

“I can’t believe it.” Harry laughs, moving his leg only to have Niall applying more pressure on it. “The stories, your tears, the way you acted in the apartment. It was all a lie.”

"I had to maintain the act until I could confirm it," Niall says, struggling to get Harry still.

“Confirm, what?” Harry blows a lock of hair that fell in front of his eyes.

“You really don’t remember me.” Niall whispers and his voice breaks. It’s not a question, it’s an affirmation but it’s filled with sorrow and confusion. Harry frowns.

He tries to free himself but Niall has his muscles grabbed in some way that keeps him from moving. It's funny, seeing him now and not noticing what did he miss when they met. Is he after him as well? Was he trying to kill him on the little trip to Paris? Was he always acting? This whole situation seems ridiculous because since he woke up, his instincts haven't failed him until now. When he met Niall he didn't see any red flags or hear an alarm going off in the back of his head like any other dangerous situation, he felt… relief.

But maybe Niall is just that good, maybe he got him fooled since the first second Harry laid eyes on him and even when he sees the inconsistencies so clearly now, he can’t believe how blind he was by those pretty blue eyes and rosy cheeks.

“Who are you?” Harry manages to ask but what he doesn’t expect is seeing a tear drop down Niall’s face and his lips trembling.

“Don’t stare at me like that if you don’t know who I am.” He says.

That’s when he sees it. The vulnerability in his eyes, the slightly tremble in his hands, his legs, his whole body, so he gets his face closer to Niall’s and he doesn’t stop him, his nose touching his cheek, then his neck until Niall lets one hand go to touch his hair and Harry uses to push him over and pick him up from the floor and then throwing him at the wall, but now Niall is not defending himself, he’s just there, standing in front of Harry.

He looks tired now, his body looks so small for someone with that strength and his face is paler than Harry remembers from this morning with bad under his eyes and bitten lips. Harry gets close enough to cover his body with his, to feel his chest touching Niall’s and to get his faces as close as necessary to his noses to touch.

Harry knows that they’re supposed to be fighting, but he can’t take his eyes off his lips. There’s something about Niall that tells him to trust him, even after all that has happened, but he ignores it.

“Give me the USB." He says instead, looking at his eyes, Niall shakes his head.

Images start to pass in front of eyes like flashes, too quickly to catch up but he sees Niall's eyes, he sees brown hair and holding hands, he sees white sheets and curtains floating, a bareback with spots distributed around the skin, he sees a beard before feeling Niall’s knee hitting him right in the crotch and making him fall on Niall’s arms, his face on his chest as he holds him close and plays with his hair.

 

"There's a motel nearby. We can talk there, take a shower and clean your wounds." Niall's fingers massage his skull after he takes his hair tie like he has done it a million times before.

Harry nods because he can’t find his voice.

*

They don’t talk in the car, they don’t talk when they pick up the groceries and the red bag from the trunk or when they register under fake names and take a room with two bed which they pay with the cash from Harry’s bag. They don’t talk when they enter the room and Harry puts the groceries in the table near the door or when Harry throws the bag on the bed and Niall takes his laptop from his backpack along with some fresh clothes.  

The only thing clear is the existence of a truce between them, even when one watches the door of the bathroom when the other showers or sees every single move the other makes when they’re cleaning their wounds. It’s like walking in eggshells, Harry decides, but he doesn’t feel like his life is in any more danger inside this motel room than it could be anywhere outside.

“So, will you tell me who you are?” Harry asks, seeing Niall dying his hair in front of the mirror of the bathroom. He sighs.

“We’ve known each other for ten years,” he says, smiling at Harry’s reflection and then he washes his hair again. “We’ve been together for eight.”

"Together as-?" Harry whispers, more to himself than to Niall.

“Yes.” He finally steps out the bathroom with a towel on his shoulders, just like Harry.

He's sitting in one of the chairs next to the table with Niall's laptop close and USB on the top of it. It's the elephant of the room but neither of them has addressed it yet.

“So, Is Harry Styles my real name?” He asks and Niall nods.

His hair is still wet but it’s not blonde anymore, it’s a dark brown and it suits him well. Harry knows they have to blend in if they want to figure it out what’s going on and why people are trying to kill him and for what they heard in the radio earlier, police enforcement is already looking for them.

“We should cut it off.” He finally says, making Niall’s head pop up from behind the red towel.

“Excuse me?” He asks.

“My hair.” He explains, slowly because it seems something hard for Niall to understand. “It gets in my face and I can’t move properly.”

Niall laughs then, hard and loud, turning his face red and sitting in the bed when his legs start to give in. it takes him a couple of seconds to put himself together until his eyes lay on Harry.

“Are you serious?” He asks looking at him like a second head grew up suddenly from his neck.

“Why wouldn’t I be?” Harry replies with a question.

"You wouldn't normally say that." Niall searches for a pair of scissors in his backpack and walks to the bathroom, waiting for Harry to follow him.

So he does, he sits in the edge in the toilet and lets Niall play with his hair for a ceremonious minute before he starts cutting it off. Like he was saying goodbye.

"Tell me," Harry says after a while as he sees his hair falling to the floor. "About us."

It’s not like he doesn’t believe Niall. He felt something when they met and he has found himself lost in him more times than he can count, but that’s attraction and Niall is an attractive man, Harry can’t deny that, and maybe it’s Niall crying in the gas station or the way his voice broke when he realized Harry doesn’t know who he is or he can just be a really good actor but Harry needs to hear it.

“We met ten years ago in MI6.” Niall clears his throat and Harry can’t hear changes in his voice range. He’s not lying. “We went on a couple of dates and we were kind of a thing but then you got recruited by The Secret English Intelligence Service and I got recruited by the Irish Government. So we took separated paths but we still managed to see each other.”

Harry wants to laugh and he would if Niall’s voice wasn’t so serious. What are they? Some kind of spies? They go around the world killing people in the name of the crown? But it makes sense. A fucking chip in his hip, his scar, the way his sense work or how his body reacts to his surrounding, how he moves, how he _fight_ s. It makes sense.

“We, uh, fell in love. But as our lives start to get more and more dangerous we decided to be more… secretive. No one knew about us. We created this system to visit each other and we only had one rule.” Niall puts the scissors on the sink and washes his hands before touching Harry’s new hair. “We wouldn’t miss a meeting. Never. If that’d happen it would be the only sign to end our relationship.” Harry turns to him and his hands fall in Harry’s shoulders. “We were supposed to meet in Germany six months ago but you never came. I haven’t heard from you since, until yesterday when your face popped up in the Most Wanted list for my country.”

“Seeing you in the Embassy wasn’t a coincidence, may I assume?” Harry asks and Niall shakes his head.

"I was in Zurich for another job. I got the notification the moment you stepped into the bank."

“Why didn’t you go to the bank, then?” Harry stands up, and Niall’s eyes following him until he has to look up even when the height difference it’s not so big. He likes it.

“Because I know you better than you know yourself.” He smiles stealing glances at Harry’s lips. “Even when you don’t know who you are.”

Harry is the one getting closer now, his own eyes on Niall’s lips but when he reaches his hips, Niall steps back, getting out of the bathroom and letting Harry hanging for a moment until he shakes his head and turns his head to the mirror.

It’s shorter, way shorter. He can see his ears but there’s enough hair on the top to look good. Harry wonders if Niall has done this for him before, or if he ever has done this for other men. But how could he? Ten years seems like a lifetime to be with someone, to love someone and the fact that someone like Niall, like them, could’ve put in with everything that comes with that line of work makes me want to know what happened six months ago.

When he goes back to the room, Niall is sitting in front of the laptop, it’s on and he has the memory drive in his finger waiting for him to sit in the empty chair next to him, so he does. It’s not a normal laptop, it’s heavier and it’s attached to some kind of processor. He takes the USB from Niall's hand and connects it to its port. A black square pops up in the screen, requiring a password.

"It's encrypted," Harry says, looking at the time in red numbers counting down from ten.

"Try 1911," Niall says and he sounds confident enough to Harry to risk it.

It works. But the first thing they see it's a video. It's Harry in some kind of room, dressed in all black he has some bruises in the face, his breathing is fast he looks around the room even when it's obviously empty. Niall stands up the moment the camera focus on his face and sees the bite of blood in his lips. He takes some steps back like the man on the screen is a ghost and not sitting right next to me.

Harry doesn’t recognize the place where the video was taken but he can see himself and it feels so bizarre because it’s his face but the terror on his eyes it’s something he has never seen before. The Harry in the video rubs his hands on his face and sits down in front of a camera, letting his hair down and messing it up to put it behind his eyes seconds later. He smiles at the camera, tenderly.

"Niall." Harry whispers and his voices sound so cracked.

Niall steps back even further and his eyes start to tear up again, putting one head over his chest where his heart is meant to be and Harry feels like an intruder even when it's him who is talking to Niall in the video when it's him who Niall is crying for.

“If you’re seeing this, I’m dead.” He laughs and rests his arms on his tights, rubbing his hands together, playing with the rings on his fingers.

Niall holds his breathe and run to sit on the chair again, getting his face as close as the screen as he can. Now the Harry in the screen has his attention as well.

"I'm sorry, baby. I'm so sorry." A single tear runs down his cheek and he cleans it up before it could reach his chin. He takes a deep breath a looks into the camera. "We never talk about work but a few months ago something odd happened. I was sent to Barcelona to recover some blueprints and designs of the crown's interest. It all went well but when I found the report in Jeff's office it didn't include some other material I got. At first, I let it slide. Maybe Jeff forgot, maybe he corrected it later."

He laughs again but the look in this eyes is dead and Harry can see the regret in them.

“Jeff has been stealing and selling intelligence to terrorist groups, politicians and people with power all around the world. And I was so fucking blind to see it, until now.”

"No," Niall whispers, making Harry take his eyes off the screen to look at him.

"When I confronted him he denied everything-" Harry smiles, looking at the floor. "Of course he did." He said under him breathe at the same time Niall says it out loud but he doesn't flinch, like he's used to that kind of thing, like it's something that always happens. "I got proof and I was on my way to exposed him to Ben when he cornered me and show me pictures of you."

There’s that smile again. The one he saw in Niall when he realized Harry didn’t know who he was. And he saw the saw thing in his eyes. The pain of losing, of knowing there was nothing he could’ve done to prevent the situation or revert a result. The Harry in the video had no chance.

“And it wasn’t just pictures of your face, it was you that day in a coffee shop, outside your apartment in Dublin, getting in a car, getting in a plane. Pictures of us through your window.” His voice breaks and Harry turns to see Niall.

He’s not crying anymore, the color of his face is gone and his eyes look empty but he’s not scared. He’s mad. His hands are over the time in a fist and his knuckles are white. He wasn’t to touch him, he wants to unwrap his hands and take them into his but he knows he can’t.

“He has me grabbed by the balls, baby. So I had to let you go until this was fixed.”

"Fucking idiot," Niall mumbles under his breath and now Harry is scared.

“But I couldn’t. Something went down in Venice. He’s after me and I don’t think this ends with me, so you have to run, Niall, because he thinks you know all of this I don’t think he’s working alone. He’s not gonna stop.” And this is when he breaks, Harry starts crying and Niall gets up from his chair. “All I have on him is here,” he says after he calms himself. “You have to get this to the crown. Contact Tomlinson and Payne. They’ll help you if you show them this video. I didn’t wanna involve more people. But I won’t let them touch you.”

He goes quiet for a few minutes until steps start to resound on the background. Harry looks to what it seems to be a door and stands up. "My only regret is not marrying you, you know?"

And then it stops. The screen goes off as if the computer turns itself off but them documents and photographs start to pop up all over the screen and it's a lot. Tons and tons of information and Niall takes the chair and throws it to the wall, making Harry stand up slowly.

“Niall?” He says, slowly.

“I hate you!” He screams from the top of his lungs. His face is red and he’s crying again and Harry doesn’t know what to do. “Always making decisions for me. That is not how this works!”

He's beating Harry's chest with his fists now and Harry holds him and takes it until he gets tired, until he only has the energy to cry on his shoulder and his breathing slows down, until his knees are too weak to keep him standing for himself and when Harry looks down to see if he's okay, Niall kisses him. It's rough and messy and ravenous, but Harry kisses him back and holds him tight.

Harry puts his hands on his waist and Niall takes his face with both hands, holding it a bit too hard, making him feel his fingertips in the back of his neck. And Harry can taste his tears on his lips, he can feel his heartbeat in his own chest and it all tastes like pain. So when Niall starts to pull his shirt out of his head, he lets him and he helps him get out of those pants, he kisses his cheeks and his neck, softly when he's finally naked in front of him and his eyes avoid his and his hands take his arms to look at his tattoos, maybe looking for reassurance that this man in front of him is the man he loves.

He kisses a little clover in the back of his hand before he pushes Harry in the bed and starts kissing his chest, making it hard for him to breath. They don’t say anything, there’s no need to speak no when Harry feels like he can’t stop and when Niall _seems_ to need this.

Niall tries to take his pants off but his hands are shaking so Harry helps him and bring his face to kiss him once they're off. It's different this time, Harry notices, Niall is going slower, gentler, he's holding one of Harry's hand as the other is touching his back, his hips, his ass. Niall moans in Harry's cheeks when he starts kissing his neck, so he goes down, again. And before Harry could prepare himself he's taking him at once, making direct eye contact.

“I’m not gonna last, you need to-" Harry says, running out of breath but Niall lets him go only to sit over his lap and pushing him back down when Harry tries to sit up to turn them over.

After that, everything happens in a blur. Niall licking his fingers and preparing himself slowly, gently like he’s doing this for Harry more than himself and Harry feeling like he’s stealing this moment from someone else, Niall slowly goes down on him, closing his eyes and opening his mouth as Harry moans loud and his hands grab Niall’s hips hard enough to leave marks. He tells him to go faster and Harry does, he tells him he’s not some kind of porcelain doll that’s going to break, but Harry can see the cracks where their hands touch in his hips, he can see them in the love bites across his neck and his chest.

Niall has the wheel. Harry knew it the second he kissed him but seeing him like this, with his hands over his chest to support himself, going up and down, slowly, like he’s feeling every bit of Harry in him like he has missed this, with his chest and his neck all red like he’s about to explode it’s what makes Harry come. He’s warm and his sweat gets lost with Harry’s when he finally falls in his chest after they both came and Harry kisses his forehead, their chests going up and down at the same rhythm. 

Harry holds him when he starts crying again and kissing his lips, repeating _I love you_ over Harry's lips, his cheeks, and his closed eyes. And they kiss and touch and hold until Niall falls to sleep in a sigh.

*

When Harry opens his eyes it’s daytime and Niall already dressed up, putting their things back in his backpack. There's some kind of breakfast in the table, coffee and what it seems to be orange juice, bananas, and some toasts. Harry rubs his eyes and stretches in the bed before sitting down and seeing the back of Niall's head.

“Do we have time for breakfast?” Harry yawns.

"No, we don't." Niall reaches the remote control and turns the tv in the top of the corner on. The first thing that appears on the screen is their faces in a Spanish news channel. "We're famous now. Get dressed, we need to leave."

Harry catches the pants that Niall throws at him and puts them on as quickly as he can. He picks up the shirt from the floor and takes the black bag that Niall hands him as he puts the boots on. He checks the interior of the bag and finds the content of the red one. Harry zips it back and makes no questions about the red bag, he takes his coat from the rack and leans on the table to eat a toast in three bites and take a cup of coffee when they leave the room.

“Are you for real?” Niall says walking to the back of the motel.

“I’m hungry.”

Harry walks to a grey sedan and forces the door to let Niall in, but he has already opened the pilot door and put the vehicle going. Harry snorts and sits in the copilot seat, taking a sip of his coffee as Niall starts driving full speed. There's no one in the streets or the road, maybe it's too early or maybe the town is small enough to be shut down for two fugitives.

It doesn't really matter; it disappears on the rearview as Harry tries to finish his coffee without spilling it to his shirt. Niall keeps one hand on the wheel and uses the other to take a burner phone from the pocket of his pants. He marks a number without even seeing the screen on the phone and call, putting it on speaker and it only rings twice before someone picks up.

There's silence on the other side of the call and Niall sighs, loudly before saying a name.

“Zayn.” There’s another city getting closer and Niall lowers the speed.

“Niall?!” The voice coming from the speaker is deep and heavy. “For fuck’s sake. What is going on? What is your face everywhere? Are you and Harry okay?”

Harry turns his eyes to the phone, wondering if this person knows him too when Niall told him before no one did. But it's ten years. How do you hide an important person to the best parts of your life for a decade?

“We’re fine but I need you to do me a favor. Off the book. You’re the only person I trust right now.” Niall sounds methodic and in completely calm. This is his element and now Harry realizes it’s his too.

The line goes quiet for a second and then all that sounds in the car is a sigh. “Anything you need.”

“How do we know he’s not tracing this call.” The words came out of his mouth before Harry could even notice, Niall turns to him but the look on his face changes immediately, maybe remembering that Harry doesn’t remember this person.

“Oh, there you are.” This Zayn person says. “You don’t trust me on this but you use five different algorithms to get in touch with me only to ask me for what kind of ring would Niall like? To then, what? Disappear without leaving any trace? That’s what I call fucking cold feet.”

“Not now, Zayn.” Niall sighs, again, biting his lips and looking at the road in front of him. He didn’t know that and Harry should keep his mouth shut. “We’re in trouble.”

“Right.” He answers. “What is it that you need, again?”

"I need the location of Tomlinson and Payne," Niall says, getting out of the road somewhere down the mountains. Harry doesn't ask.

 “You literally have Harry next to you,” Zayn replies after a few seconds of silence. “Who better than him to know?”

“He doesn’t remember.” The car starts to jump up the second they get into the rocky ground, Harry holds onto the handler and Niall speeds up until he sees other entrance to the road. They need a new car.

“What do you mean he doesn’t remember?” Zayn sounds genuinely confused and Niall opens the mouth to explain but Harry beats him to it.

"Two weeks ago I woke up in a Swedish fishing boat in the middle of the ocean with two bullets in my back and not a single memory of who I am," Harry says monotonously like he has rehearsed it before in front of a mirror. Maybe he has.

“Does that mean-?” He says, softly.

"He doesn't know who I am," Niall replies, quickly as he enters the city in front of them.

_Barcelona._

Harry frowns and looks at Niall so fast he’s surprised he neck didn’t twist. He tries to make sense of what’s going on. The Harry in the video said that Barcelona is where everything started to go wrong. Why are they here?

"Niall…," Zayn sound hurt like he's trying to reach Niall through the phone and Harry understands.

“Not now.” He says behind his teeth. “Just get me the locations.”

“I’m gonna secure this line and I’ll text you the coordinates.” He hangs up.

Niall drives for a while until he decided to leave the car somewhere near a high school. They take their stuff off the seats and start walking down the streets. It's the middle of January and there's no snow in the streets. Niall is walking by his side but he keeps looking at his phone or the sidewalk or even the stores as they pass them.

Something hurts in the middle of Harry’s chest and it only increases when he sees Niall so close and so far apart at the same time. The Niall next to him it’s nothing like Niall he held in his arms the night before, trembling and sweaty with a broken heart, this Niall is decided and unbreakable, his steps are strong walking down a city he seems to know like the back of his hand. But he’s still just as beautiful with the almost non-existent rays of sunshine in the top of his dark hair and the stubble that’s starting to grow and Harry loves already.

"Don't do that," Harry says but Niall keeps walking as he didn't even say a word. "I know this hurts you," and now Niall stops, in the middle of the street and Harry catches up. "I know I'm not him but you need to stop pushing me away, Niall. You need to tell me what we're doing so I can protect us."

“Protect us.” He laughs, but there’s something behind that laugh, a memory.

"You love me." Harry look for Niall's eyes but he keeps avoiding meeting his, so he takes his chin with fingers pointing his face to Harry's direction. "And I know I love you because every time I see you, Niall, something warms up in the middle of my chest and my hands itch to touch you. Since the first time I saw you in that embassy."

Niall laughs again, biting his lips but he doesn’t move, he doesn’t brush Harry off or interrupts him and when Harry leans on to kiss him, he lets him.

"What are we doing here?" Harry asks when their faces are close enough to see their breaths mix up in front of their faces.

“We’re gonna find out what did you steal for the queen.” Niall smiles, slowly reaching for his hand until they start walking again, interlocking their fingers.

They’re about to cross the street when the burner phone in Niall pocket vibrates and he takes it out. He opens the messages and stares at him longer than necessary and them, he frowns.

“Everything okay?” Harry asks.

“They’re here.” It’s all that Niall says and when Harry opens his mouth to asks who are they or what is he talking about, Niall turns to him. “Louis and Liam. They’re here in Barcelona.”

They cross the street then and Niall throws his phone in the garbage truck that passes next to them.

*

They steal another car to avoid the security cameras in the streets. Niall is driving and that seems to be the only constant since the moment Harry woke up, Niall with the eyes on the road and Harry looking through the window. They’re quiet but this time is different, the silence is not asphyxiating, is comfortable and when their hands touch by accident, Niall doesn’t clear his throat and Harry doesn’t look away.

Niall said that the coordinates were just about outside the city and he's been driving for almost twenty minutes, so Harry figures they can't be that far away. He closes his eyes and feels the cold of the glass when his forehead leans on the window. He hears Niall's fingers tap the wheel when he takes a turn and he can feel his eyes checking on him every five minutes like he can attack him and escape any second. He doesn't have his gun; Niall doesn't trust him enough yet which is funny because Harry is relying entirely on him in base of a video apart from the fact that he's been lying since the second they met and even if they're more comfortable with each other now and already made peace with the idea that they're doing this together, whatever that's on Niall's mind because any plan Harry had, flew out of the window when Niall pointed a gun at his face. But he has to trust him, right? He's supposed to be in love with him, he's supposed to be loved by the man that's driving on his side proclaiming doing all this only to protect him and keep him alive.

Harry wonders how is to be loved by Niall. How does it feel to loving him? He opens the eyes then and looks at him. His profile is on display and the sun is right up above them, making the silhouette of Niall’s face shine. He has freckles in his nose and his cheeks and he can even count his eyelashes is he feels like it. He’s gorgeous and Harry feels quiet defenseless around him. He can literally break his arm in one movement and the only thought on Harry’s mind would be how lovely that little mark in his chin looks.

Can those feelings stay? When you can't remember anything else, can you love someone that much that it stays in your brain and appears like muscle memory? Harry surely hopes so because even when he doesn't know Niall or remembers anything related to him or them, even when he can't trust anything that he said before Paris or anything he did, Harry knows he loves him. He may not love the man he is right now but he loves the man he knows for more than ten years and by the way he looks right now, so focus on just one thing when he hits the pedal that is solving this mess, how he checks the mirror to make sure no one is following them when Harry himself has forgotten about the fact his life is in danger, he knows he doesn't need to trust him for Niall to protect and the warmness in his chest makes sense. He feels safe with him, so he reaches for his hand and he jumps up a bit when Harry interweaves their fingers.

Harry smiles, turning his head to the window and in a fragment of a second, his eyes catch the side of a building. Eight floors, red brick color, and a large rooftop. The numb sound in the back of his mind comes again. He has to close his eyes because now the light is hurting him and he lets Niall's hand go to apply pressure in his forehead. Images flash in front of his closed eyes again, it's nighttime and he's running from the top of that building, someone is chasing him and he can see the street under his feet when he jumps from one roof to the other in front of him. His hands are holding something and the next thing he sees is a motorcycle perfectly waiting for him, there's a voice in his ear talking to him but he can't hear it. He sees a man in a grey suit and the sound slowly fades away, taking the images with it.

“Are you okay?” Niall whispers, picking his face up with his finger to examine it.

Harry nods. “Just a headache.”

He doesn't believe him but he doesn't push. Niall stares at his face for a few more seconds before parking in front of a very old green building, he hands him his gun and checks his is load before opening the door of the car.

“Stay sharp.” He says and then he disappears to go to the small door that seems to be falling in pieces. 

“Who are they again?” Says Harry.

"People you work with," Niall answers without looking at him, standing in the wall next to the door.

"Shouldn't be running away from the people I worked with instead of running towards them?" Harry asks leaning in the opposite wall next to the door.

“Not them. They’re family.”

Niall opens the door and slightly kicks it to show the entire room in front of them. There's no one else in plain sight, Harry enters first with his gun up in front of his face like it's second nature and Niall follows him right behind. they check every room on the first floor and Harry is about to go upstairs when Niall stops him by pulling the sleeve of his coat. Harry looks at him and frowns, Niall points the giant bookshelf in the right side of the room.

It goes from top to the floor and it’s filled up with old books covered in dust except from one that looks brand new in the fifth compartment. They walk up there with their guns at the side of their faces. Harry looks at the book; it’s a biography of Margaret Thatcher, but it’s upside down, her face facing the ceiling so Harry puts it back to its place.

They hear a click coming from behind the bookshelf and it divides in half, opening in front of them like elevator’s doors and a small screen appears.

"Put your hand there," Niall says, pointing at the black screen with his gun.

“Why my hand?” Harry whispers again but he does anyway after the look that Niall gives him.

A green shiny line scans the palm of his hand and his name appears in the screen and under it four blank spaces. Harry turns to Niall and he's pretty sure his mouth is open but Niall's expression hasn't changed at all.

"Try 1911," Niall says next to him and Harry does. The door opens.

“What with that number?” He puts the gun up again.

"It's the day we met," Niall says, entering first this time.

Inside, the place looks like any normal apartment, but way more updated than the exteriors, there are no windows but is wide and the walls are white to make the room brighter. A big sofa in the middle and space is divided by a wall. A section for the food with a microwave and a fridge, some sleeping bags and three advance computers in the last corner with giant processors. The doors close behind them and Harry's brain starts running, he looks at his sides so he doesn't see someone jumping on him.

He tries to shake him off but then he has a hand around his neck and his own gun behind his head. He takes the hand and the gun with both hands and spread them out, throwing his gun at the end of the room and turns the man’s arm and takes him by the collar of his shirt. He’s about to throw a fist to his face when Niall screams.

“Harry, stop!” and he does.

His breathing is going fast and his vision stopped seeing red the moment he heard Niall's voice. The man in front of him is shorter but sneaky, he has fierce blue eyes and a beard growing.

“Harry?” The man whispers and now he is hugging him, squeezing him.

He turns to look at Niall. He's standing next to another man. He's taller than Niall and Harry can see the silhouette of his biceps through his black shirt. His beard is way better than the guy that stills hugging Harry but he has kinder eyes. Niall checks on Harry again before giving all of his attention to the man next to him, they start walking to the computers and the man types a code and the screens light up, showing security cameras in one screen, maps in other and some personal records in the other, Harry's personal record to be precise.

“What the fuck is going on, mate?” Says the man when he finally lets Harry go and walks to join Niall and the other guy in the computers.

Harry stills standing in the same place he was five minutes ago but everyone else seems to have moved on already. Niall looks at him when he doesn’t catch up with them and walks to him.

"The one that hugged you is Louis Tomlinson," Niall whispers, explaining. "The other one is Liam Payne." Harry nods and this time he goes with Niall to be reunited with the other two men in the secret room.

“Sorry about that,” Says Louis. “The security camera didn’t catch your faces and… I mean, look at you,” he laughs, touching Harry’s hair. “I knew the situation was bad but I didn’t know it was this _bad_.”

Harry takes his hand off his hair and takes the free chair next to Liam and looks at the data in front of him. There's a lot of classified documents and his name written all over. If Louis feels thrown off, he doesn't show.

“Will you care to explain?” Says Louis behind him, he feels his hands on his shoulders and he squeezes. “Two weeks ago Jeff enters the headquarters saying that the mission went sideways, your coms are dead and your _body_ was nowhere to be found," he takes some air, like this is difficult to him and Harry stops looking at the screen to look at Niall, he's looking at his shoes but Liam's eyes are on him and he's frowning. "Then your face shows up in a bank in Zurich two days ago, setting all our red alarms off," Harry looks at Louis then, he's mad and worried, but mostly mad. "And suddenly Jeff sends a capture order based in your disappearance with sensitive classified information that could affect England and four hours later there's a price on your head because you're a traitor." Louis runs out of breath but Liam is there in a second, resting a hand on his shoulder, calming him down like he's used to it.

“We don’t believe any of it, Harry.” He says with conviction, looking right at his eyes. “We know you,” he reassures. “But we need to know what happened.”

“Here’s all you need to know.” Says Niall behind them, plugging the USB drive into the computers.

*

“So, you don’t know who we are?” Louis asks and he sounds hurt.

Harry feels bad immediately but when Niall sits next to him on the sofa and give him a cup of tea, he feels comfortable enough to shake his head and take a sip of his drink.

“How’s that possible?! How can you forget _us_?” He’s getting closer but Liam stops him again.

“Louis.” He says and it’s all it takes to make Louis look smaller than he actually is.

He looks defeated when he sits in the sofa across them and Liam sits slowly between them, like some kind of mediator when Niall would be the most logical option for that position but Harry doesn’t really mind when he feels his hand on his tight trying to comfort him.

“Did Jeff shoot you?” Liam asks him, resting his arms in his knees and leaning to Harry with his hands crossed.

"The bullets were located in my back; I couldn't have seen the person who shot me," Harry asks. Liam nods and Louis snort.

“Still a smartass, aren’t you?” he says with irritation and Niall just laughs.

There's something magical about Niall's laugh, it starts small but it builds up faster, turning him into a red mess and Harry is so fond of him already. And the thing is, it's very contagious because it takes just a matter of seconds and then they're all laughing.

"We need to get to London," Liam says as the laughs start to fade away.

They all nod.

*

"Explain to me how are we gonna do this again because I don't like it one bit," Niall says in their ears and Harry tries to bite down his smile.

They enter the English headquarters of whatever Agency they work for. Harry is handcuffed and has Liam and Louis holding each of his arms as they push him through the hallway, gaining everyone’s attention, making them stand up from their desks, stop in the middle of the corridors and picking up phones to start making calls.

Even when it sounded like madness when Louis said in that safe house in Barcelona, this is actually going according to plan. They haven't check them for coms or weapons in the entrance because of the shock of seeing Harry, handcuffed, by his two partners. Everyone just went silent.

Leave Spain undetected wasn’t easy. They needed Zayn to make them fake passports and identifications, Louis had a contact that could get them an airplane so they wouldn’t have to use the agency’s they came into. The rest was just running against the clock with Liam driving around the city, making calls, getting things they’re supposedly going to need and leaving Niall in a building near enough where he can assist the operation without activating any alarms. 

The place is full and Harry walks in looking at his feet, making eye contact with no one as they keep passing door and offices.

"This is the only way we can get him into Jeff's office alive," Liam whispers into his coms.

"This better work or I'll-" Niall starts groaning but it's stopped by Louis' voice.

"You'll kill us both, yeah you already said that ten thousand times. Calm down, Neil. We have his back. We've always had." Louis clears his throat indicating Niall to stop talking and pushes Harry to hurry him up, making him wonder if he's taking advantage from this.

A door opens at the end of the hallway and a man in a blue suit walks out holding a phone to his face, he looks in all directions till his eyes meet Harry’s and he guesses if this is Jeff Azoff, head of operations according to Louis and Liam, their boss for more than six years, the person they put their lives into his hands every time they leave the building. He hangs up and puts his phone into his pocket before walking to them.

The difference between them and Jeff is that he is not a soldier or highly trained to serve his country, he's a corporative politician with high education and a lot of money seeking for more power to fulfill big aspirations, maybe becoming prime minister or betraying the crown. So Harry is pretty sure the two-man by his side can see the terror in his eyes as well when he finally stands in front of Harry with both hands on his pockets, looking at him above his chin and clearing his throat.

“Report.” He says, looking at Liam and Louis rolls his eyes to the side.

“We found him in Portugal, trying to leave to-” He starts but it’s almost immediately interrupted.

"Ecuador," Jeff says, laughing. "That's so predictable, Styles." When he looks up behind them and sees the rest of the office looking at the four of them. "Get back to work!"

And just like that, the headquarters get back to life. People hurry to their seats and then sound of office doors shutting down and the typing starts again like nothing ever happened.

"Good to see you again, Jeff," Harry says with a cocky smile, letting his head hang to the floor as Louis and Liam are still holding him.

“Get him to the interrogation room.” He spits out, talking to the hallway and disappearing in a corner and they turn to the opposite direction.

Louis looks behind him before whispering with his head down.

"He must be calling the extraction team to take you to some prison at the end of the world so we need a confession in less than 5 minutes, H," Liam says, opening the door and throwing Harry inside a white room with a silver table and two chairs in the middle of it. "We're gonna be right in the other side.” He says through the coms as he closes the door.

Harry stands up and sees his reflection in the mirror that's in front of him. Louis thought it would be unrealistic if he just walks into the Agency handcuffed nice and clean, so he kindly gave him a black eye and a bloody lip. He winks at the mirror, to whoever is on the other side of the room and sits in the chair in the middle of the room, with his hands behind his back.

Jeff enters the room seconds later, holding a file with his name with the extension of a History book and throw it to the table and sitting in the free chair. He’s smiling but Harry can see through him, he’s preoccupied too by the way his hands tremble when he opens the file and picks up three photographs to place them in front of Harry.

Two security Spanish security guards dead by gunshot, covered in blood and one crashed car with no one inside. Harry doesn't remember any of this or the man that keeps putting documents and photographs trying to gain a reaction from him but the only thing he feels is nausea. Has he done all of this? And Niall loves him still?

“It’s not too late, Harry.” He says with a friendly voice. “You give us the information you stole and I’ll put a good word for you. Send you to somewhere with max security instead of death penalty, you know?”

“Are you talking about the information _you_ stole? Because I don’t have it.” Harry says resting his back in the chair and spreading his legs over the table.

"Enough," Jeff screams, slapping the table with both hands and then he laughs and his hair falls in front of his face. "You see that?" He points to the surveillance cameras in the ceiling, there's no red dot indicating the camera is functioning. "They're off, which means nothing that you see here will ever see the light, just like anything I could, so… let me ask again," He puts the hair back and stands up, leaning closer to Harry. "Where is the USB drive."

He pronounces every word and Harry wonders how could he ever have trusted this guy. He doesn’t know how much time he has left but he needs to do something right now because when he looks at the cameras again, they’re one which only means Liam and Louis are in the room. So he laughs, loudly and manically, pissing Jeff off, making go across the table to lift him up from the collar of his shirt.

“Up high your asshole,” Harry answers and then he feels Jeff’s fist to his jawline and his body being thrown at the wall.

"You should've stayed dead." He laughs. "But I should've known better, right? Harry Styles is not easy to kill."

“It’s done, Jeff.” Harry feels the blood in his mouth and spits it out. “If anything happens to me that information will be uploaded to the services. The country will know what you did.” He tries to stand up but Jeff kicks him in the rips, making him fall down again.

“That’s bullshit!” He screams again. He’s nervous, walking to one side of the room to the other too quickly, too erratic. “I took it from you in that boat!”

“You’re forgetting someone else.” Harry smiles and Jeff ducks down to look at him in the idea.

“You’re talking about your little boyfriend? I can make you disappear in a second, Harry, and I’ll find your sister and your mother no matter how well you think you hide them.” Jeff is spitting words to his face but that throws him off.

Does he have a mother and a sister? Why didn't Niall tell him about that? Are they looking from him? Does he keep contact with them? Do they love him? He opens his mouth and tries to speak but his mind is blank again and he can't breathe anymore, but Jeff, he looks like he has won the lottery.

 _“We need a confession, Harry.”_ It’s Louis voice in his ear but he can’t put his thoughts in order.

"Oh," Jeff says and he stands up, slowly. "So they're your weak spot."

"If you touch them!" Harry stands up but Jeff pulls out his gun from behind his back, pointing at Harry's head, making him step back.

“Careful, Styles.” Jeff laughs, again. “I can just scream for help and then shoot, claiming self-defense, you know how this works.”

“So you frame me?!” Harry screams from the back of his throat, he’s tired and everything hurts.

“You left me no option, Harry.” He puts down the weapon, just enough to get closer to Harry. “This is on you, you shouldn’t have put your nose into somebody else’s business and ruin our friendship in the process.”

"For how much?!" Harry approaches him and Jeff pull up the gun again but his time, Harry puts himself right in front of him, feeling the metal in his skin. "How long have you been stealing sensitive information and selling it?! That's what you're accusing me of, but is all you, isn't it?"

“Too long to stop.” And then he hits him with the back of the gun in his forehead. One time, two and then to many to count.

His vision gets blurry and his knees can't resist his body for too long so he falls and the last thing he sees is Jeff's shoes covered with his blood. He rests his front in the floor and then it happens, too fast and too rush and Harry feels like he's been hit by a truck. He sees everything, his childhood house in Cheshire and his mother, he sees Gemma graduating and he sees Niall in a bed, in a balcony, in a pool, everywhere, he sees him. He sees Louis and Liam running behind him, he hears bullets and he sees blood but behind all that, he sees Jeff standing in a boat in the middle of the ocean on a rainy night, making him turn around and he hears shoot and tasted the water in his mouth.

 _"We got him,"_ Liam says in his ear before Harry twisted his wrist and frees one hand of the handcuff and he stands up, taking Jeff’s gun from his hand in one movement and throw it in at the wall behind him.

 _“He was working with Ben, we found him in the control room and we had to contact Paul-”_ But Harry is not listening to Louis anymore.

Harry jumps on the man in front of him, not giving him time to react and starts beating up his face until the door opens and Louis and Liam lift him up from Jeff’s body and letting other men enter the room to pick him up and handcuffing.

"And Jeff," Harry says, making the guards stop as he rests in Louis' shoulder. "As I said in Venice, I'm out."

Liam turns to him with his eyes wide open but Harry has only one thing in mind.

“I need to see Niall.”

*

Niall is running, Harry can see him from where he’s sitting letting a paramedic treat his wound in the head and even when he’s fast, everything is happing in slow motion. Harry feels like he hasn’t seen him in seven months even when he has been with him for the last two days so when someone stops him at the door, he laughs, especially when he twists the arm of the security guy that touched his shoulder and Louis and Liam had to run to them to stop them to arrest him.

Harry stands up, pulling away from the hands that try to clean his wound or bend his wrists and he walks to Niall, lipping because he can't run but Niall can, and he does just like he throws himself to Harry's arms and he has sufficient energy left to catch him.

“You remember.” He says with teary eyes and trembling hands. “You remember.”

Harry nods and feels his touch in the back of his head before he kisses him like they've been kept apart for too long because they have. He kisses him with hunger and desperation like Niall did back in the motel, and then he kisses him slowly and tenderly when he feels the tears rolling down his cheeks, he kisses him like he's explaining himself for his decision and apologizing for the consequences, he holds the back of his head and kisses him like he's asking for forgiveness for all the pain.

He holds him tight when he feels Niall's cry from the back of the throat and he knows that he's been already forgiven. Harry bites his lips because he remembers. His lips, his eyes, his touch, the little secret places that tingle him, the scars in his skin, his secrets, his regrets. He remembers everything, the fights and the mistakes, the calls and the apologies in little notes hidden in his jackets.

He knows the man in his arms just as well as he knows him and when they finally let each other go and avoid the eyes of everyone else in the room, Harry holds his face with both hands and looks into those eyes and knows he would do anything to protect him, to protect _them_ , even making bad and stupid decisions all over again.

And when Niall holds onto him and rests his face in his neck, Harry remembers the fragrance in his head, the shampoo he uses, their place in midtown just a couple of block from here where he’s gonna be taking him after they clear him. He even remembers the small place in the back of his mother’s chimney where he keeps his engagement ring out of his mother’s or his sister’s reach.


End file.
